Full Game Release Date: September 19, 2023
Systems: Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox X/S
Publisher: Neowiz Games
Developer: Round8 Studios
Time Spent: 2.9 Hours
[Just a quick heads up, as of this writing (Thursday afternoon), I have not finished the demo for Lies of P. I am currently in the process of grinding Ergo to level up for some additional HP and experimenting with the heavy weapon because the boss for the area, and presumably the demo, is doing a right job of kicking my robotic ass over the arena. Now that that is out of the way, moving on.]
I do not think I would have thought that a Dark Souls-esque format and the story of Pinocchio would have been a compatible mix of genres and IP, but here we are in this dark and bloody/oily world of puppets gone awry. Like the Dark Souls series, Life of P is purposefully vague as to what exactly is going on with weapon and item descriptions giving some of the world lore. I did find two scraps of paper that contained events that happened in the world, noting that puppets and automatons were essentially rebelling against their programming (because who would not see that one coming), or at least that is what I am assuming has happened, but I am sure that there is more here taken specifically from Carlo Caollodi's novel Pinocchio.
I played Life of P on the Steam Deck, so everything I have to say about the game relates to how it played on that system. I do not think my laptop would be able to handle it, or at least it might be able to crank out some double-digit FPS. The graphical settings on the Steam Deck defaulted to Low, but I decided to bump it up to medium for the majority of my playthrough and the game looked great and handled without any issues. Once I had left the Krat railway station, I increased the graphical settings to High and there might have been a slight improvement but I could not tell all of that much, and as the game seemed to be as smooth as it played on Medium, I left the settings on High. That is until I was about 3/4 of the way through [area name] and then I decided to turn the graphics up to Best. I cannot say for sure but there might have been a performance downgrade, losing only maybe a handful of FPS, but that could have just been a placebo effect. From what I could tell, there were no issues with the game running on the Steam Deck, although the on-screen text that was part of the HUD was pretty small and thin, needing to squint a bit to read what
After choosing a simplistic gameplay style between a balanced build, a dexterity build, and a strong build, I decided to go with the balanced build (Path of the Cricket) because that seemed the safest choice in a game that I had not experienced yet. I was also a little afraid about choosing The Path of the Sweeper out of fear that I would be relegated to a heavy roll. For the first half of the demo, there was nothing in the way of customizing P, which only came about after resting at your first Bonfire. . . sorry, Stargazer, located after you beat the first mini-boss. Once using the Stargazer/Bonfire, I used the souls. . .sorry, Ergo to raise four levels putting levels into Capacity, Motivity, and Technique, mainly because I liked how widespread the stat distribution was, affecting multiple stats as opposed to just one or two. I probably should have put a level or two into Vitality, but I was thinking of this like Dark Souls 2 and I rarely increased that stat. I have since upped the Vitality stat while grinding because I have accepted the fact that I am going to get hit because my dodging and parrying still need some work.
But while there were similarities to Dark Souls, there were still plenty of differences from it being a direct copycat. There did not seem to be a way to change the grip on the sword, making a one-handed blade a two-handed one, although there were three strengths of attacks. The mechanic of collecting your souls/Ergo from the spot of your death was still present but modified in that any damage you took while on your way to collect your lost Ergo deducted from that amount; I do not know what the calculation is, if it is some combination of the number of hits and damage taken before you recover your lost Ergo, but I do not mind this alteration. There is weapon degradation, but thankfully you can repair (sharpen) while you are out in the world, but the process takes a few seconds, which begs the question of why have weapon degradation if you can repair at nearly any time? I assume that there is going to be some kind of enemy or boss that really degrades your weapon and sharpening/repairing on the fly is going to somehow be integrated, otherwise, it is just an inconvenience when you forget about the mechanic altogether. The game also changes where your lost Ergo is placed if you die during a boss fight in that it is placed just outside the boss chamber, so you do not have to constantly enter the boss fight to recover lost Ergo only to lose it again during the same boss fight. I also noticed that all but the mini-boss and boss enemies seem to lack any kind of poise. That when you attack them, more often than not, their own actions are interrupted allowing you to wail away with the only real concern being when another enemy comes at you from off-screen and they start to mob you. One last difference that I find is an improvement is that when you run out of Estus. . . sorry, Pulse Cell to heal, you can recharge your Pulse Cell by attacking enemies, but only to receive one additional charge at a time. It is a little thing, but I like not feeling that I have to find a Stargazer after using my last heal, or that I might still have a chance during a boss fight.
I definitely see the appeal here and from what I played, Round8 Studios have successfully created a Soulslike experience with Lies of P with what they have presented in the demo. I had originally thought I would stop playing after the first mini-boss in the Krat train station, feeling like I had gotten the gist of the game, but then I felt compelled to explore the new area even more. I like the look of the game, and the setting feels more unique than the Dark Souls series. Lies of P also felt like it had more horror elements than Dark Souls, in that, I was not so much afraid of what was around the next corner or if I was going to be jumped by a horde of automations and lose my Ergo, but that the enemies were deliberately staged in a way to make effective use of the lighting and setting. As if they were just waiting for the right flash of lightning and flicker of light to disappear from under the spotlight they were standing under. I did not mind the pretty boy aesthetic given to young teenage Pinocchio as it might be a bit strange playing as a two-foot-tall marionette who is off of their strings. I do wish that the game did not wipe Pinocchio clean of the accumulated gore after each battle, and maybe that sticks around a little longer in locations where it is not constantly raining, but it did take a little bit of the immersion away that they can go from covered head-to-toe in automaton gore one second to sparkling clean the next.
Knowing me and new releases of digital video games, it is likely that I will not pick this game up immediately when it releases in September. I am enjoying the game and look forward to eventually playing the full game, but my queue on the Steam Deck alone is about what you would expect to find from someone who has had a Steam account for just over a decade and I am not in the market to pay full price for a digital game at the moment. Seek us out in a few years when I get back to this and I will have a Game EXP article for you all if you are still interested in this IP.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Denn keiner wird als Held gebor'n
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